Farm it Forward models community-based food production

Team members Jude and El and volunteers Clare and Edith working in a FIF plot.

Tulitha King speaks to Emmanuela Prigioni of Farm It Forward about how they are taking a localised, community-based approach to food production in the Blue Mountains.

TULITHA KING: What is Farm it Forward?

EMMANUELA PRIGIONI: Essentially, Farm it Forward (FIF) connects people who want to grow their own food but have no land with those who have land but are unable to grow their own food. It is a highly relational approach to growing fresh food, building synergies between community, nutrition-security and skills development.

We run volunteer sessions which bring people together to meet, get their hands dirty and take home fresh, organically grown produce. The involvement, social connection and fresh food is hugely beneficial for the individual’s physical and mental health and hopefully reduces their food costs.

How did FIF start?

In 2019 the group behind FIF noticed that Census and Council data revealed increased risks of social isolation in certain demographics. We also noticed and matched two specific problems: young people wanted to grow their own food, while older people with land couldn’t work it.

With seed funding from a Youth Opportunities grant, we were able to develop our model and bring these groups together to make use of private land, using a community-based and ecological approach with no-till, non-disturbance methods.

In 2021 we opened a Farm Gate point of sale, with 100% of proceeds going back into the program.

Young people learning how to plant garlic during FIF’s high school program.

Why is local food production important?

Our industrialised food system negatively impacts the environment and it’s not sustainable to transport fresh food at the current rate. Small scale, local farming is earth-friendly, and allows us to stay connected with our community, our environment and our food. Eating local helps us to eat seasonal and nutrient-rich food and is an efficient way to feed a growing population. It brings people together in community to support shared needs—not just sustenance but also participation, creation and understanding.

What are the challenges facing Farm It Forward?

Synergistic work like ours, addressing social, environmental and economic issues, doesn’t fit neatly into predetermined categories, which makes grant applications and charitable status difficult to achieve. We need administrators to be more connected to what is happening in our communities, and we need a system that fits reality, to enable effective models like ours to exist.

What’s the bigger vision of Farm It Forward?

Our vision is to facilitate further land sharing. If we can share this knowledge of how to grow food within communities, then people can organise themselves to make it happen. Our model has drawn attention, and we now run webinars to share how we do things in our context. We have, so far, assisted ten groups around Australia to bring their own community-based food-growing initiatives to life. Our desire is to scale out and deep, not scale up. Ultimately, we’d like to help create a distributed and connected food and care system in Australia.

Team members preparing veggie boxes.

Where is Farm It Forward now?

We’re now registered as a charity and have three plots on private land, plus a plot at the local Food Co-op. We also have a grow-tunnel and a program at the local high school, which has become a strong focus of ours. Students learn about practical, social and environmental care practices, and have access to a safe and creative natural setting within school. It’s become a great civic space as parents and teachers are also involved and purchase the food boxes which students have grown and prepared.

We are continuing to build our network beyond FIF, and our boxes now also contain food from other local growers. There are eleven local community members on our committee, and we have five part-time paid team members. Both farming and social work can be hard work, and so our growers have found it more realistic to share the load, rather than have just one or two full-timers. This builds more resilience and longevity into the model.

How can people reading this get involved?

Get in touch with us via Facebook or Instagram. Check out our website at www.farmitforward.com.au

Emmanuela (Manu) Prigioni is a socio-environmental practivist and pracademic, who co-founded and co-ordinates the Farm It Forward civic food initiative in the Blue Mountains on the lands of the Darug and Gundungurra people. As part of her PhD in Design for Socio-Environmental Transitions at the University of Technology Sydney, she is looking at how Farm It Forward and other grassroots initiatives are finding innovative avenues towards relocalising food and care economies, and taking part in a necessary shift away from large scale, unsustainable, corporatised food production.

Tulitha King

Tulitha King has worked at the intersection of grass-roots sustainability, community building and greenfield development for several years across not-for-profits, the private sector and local government.

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